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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656729">Ashes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019'>lwise2019</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mikkel's Story [36]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stand Still Stay Silent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:02:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>965</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656729</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Inside the tank after the attack.</p><p>My computer caught fire while I was working on this.  I didn't expect ashes in quite that sense.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mikkel's Story [36]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536739</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ashes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mikkel clung to the door for a moment, his knees threatening to fail him at the sight, a sight that would return to him in many dark hours: the heavy oaken floorboards thrust apart by great force; the long, sinuous troll stretched dead across the floor, head-shot by Lalli; the kitten still tearing at it in feline fury; Reynir cowering against the back wall; ... and Tuuri.</p><p>Tuuri staring at him with wide, terrified eyes, her right hand holding her left shoulder, and the blood ...</p><p>The medic, the soldier, stepped up.  “Lalli, get Sigrun.  Reynir, are you hurt?”</p><p>“N--n--n--”</p><p>“Go to the radio compartment and close the door.  Keep your mask on.  Tuuri, child, are you bitten?”  He had to force out the last word.</p><p>“S--scratch--”</p><p>That was … slightly less terrible.  Bites <em>always</em> carried the Rash; sometimes scratches didn't.  Sometimes.</p><p>“All right.  Move your hand away, don't touch anything, let me take care of this.”  His body moved without conscious control, pulling out the first aid kit, cutting away the sleeve, anesthetizing, cleaning, disinfecting, and stitching the wound, while all the time his mind struggled to deal with the situation.</p><p>
  <em>Trolls followed us, hunted us, hunted <strong>Tuuri</strong> … oh, Tuuri … and the firebird!  I saw magic, magic in the world, magic with my own eyes!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was a miracle, but we need another miracle, Tuuri needs a miracle …</em>
</p><p>
  <em>All my skepticism – I was a fool and Maja and Hilmar are right … are they right?  Does magic imply gods?  If there are gods, please, please, any god, every god, please send Tuuri a miracle!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Oh, none of this can be happening!  It's a bad dream, it's a nightmare, it must be, and I'll wake up in the morning and shake my head at the thought, and Tuuri will be fine …</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Only it's not a nightmare, no, no, it's all too real ...</em>
</p><p>The work was finished, the best job he'd ever done, every stitch precisely placed.  As he turned to draw a bowl of warm water, Tuuri began to speak in a stunned monotone.  “We heard you fighting.  Kisu tried to warn us, but, but … and it came up through the floor.  She jumped on it, she fought it, she distracted it, she saved us … or … or … Reynir … its feet … I tried to duck but my shoulder … and then Lalli was there.  And then you ...”</p><p>He took her right hand in his and gently cleaned it, scrubbing under the nails, removing every trace of blood, disinfecting it carefully, as if he could wash away the truth.  Behind him, Sigrun and Emil had dragged away the carcass and Emil was placing the top of a crate over the damaged floorboards.</p><p>There was nothing more that anyone could do.  No one even spoke.  The mystery of the troll behavior, the desperate battle, the miracle of the firebird, all was forgotten in the horror of Tuuri's injury.  Lalli did not go out scouting, instead sitting silently beside his cousin, shoulder to shoulder.  Finally the exhausted fighters fell into their respective bunks and the non-immunes did the same, but it was long before anyone slept.</p>
<hr/><p>Mikkel served breakfast as always.  Despite what had happened, they would have to move on, and to do so they would have to eat.  They picked dolefully at their food, but they did in the end eat it all.</p><p>It was Tuuri who broke the silence.  “Lalli said that Kokko saved us last night.”</p><p>“Kokko?” Sigrun asked.</p><p>“The firebird, the eagle of flame, Lalli said you all saw it.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah! I didn't know the name.  It was amazing!  The most awesomest thing I've ever seen!  It burned up all the trolls ...”  Her enthusiasm trailed off a little as she remembered that the firebird hadn't burned up quite <em>all</em> the trolls.</p><p>“I wish I could have seen it.  Kokko hasn't manifested in … oh, such a long time.  And to manifest <em>here</em>, all the way across the seas!  What a wonder!”</p><p><em>It <strong>was</strong> a wonder</em>, Mikkel thought, <em>and a miracle that I shouldn't question, but couldn't it have gotten the one that was slithering under the tank after the non-immunes?  … slithering?  Someone said 'slithering' … who was it?  Someone last night … Sigrun!  Sigrun asked me if I'd got the 'slithering one'.  And I thought … no, I didn't think.  I just went on … I could have … I could have, should have, done <strong>something!</strong></em></p><p>The realization was too much for him.  He stood silently, walked outside, paced around through the ashes for a long time.  So many ashes.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
So many ashes.  Corporal Madsen walked though the ashes beyond the barricade in the bleak mid-Winter day.  The second soldier had died just an hour before, though Mikkel had truly believed he would make it.  As Corporal he had arranged return of the body to Bornholm where the man would be cremated, like so many others.  His body could not transmit the Rash, that was known, but the fear had been passed down, generation to generation, since the Great Dying.  Those killed by grosslings were always cremated.</p>
  <p>So many ashes.  Within the barricade, the Cleansers had burned down every building.  It was standard practice: the Hunters killed every grossling they could find and the Cleansers burned down anything that might shelter a grossling through the cruel winter.  It was standard practice and it worked and they had no better way, but still they were burning down everything that their ancestors had built up through centuries of struggle.</p>
  <p>So many ashes.  These were the ashes of the grosslings.  They were mostly trolls, and so had once been innocent men and women, transformed by a merciless disease into ravening monsters.  Had they known what they had become?  Impossible to guess, but surely they were at peace now, and properly cremated.</p>
  <p>So many ashes.
</p>
</blockquote>
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